


The Absence of Memory

by allfireburns



Category: Doctor Who, Torchwood
Genre: Amnesia, Angst, Gen, Introspection, POV Third Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-17
Updated: 2009-11-17
Packaged: 2017-10-03 04:10:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 503
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14045
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allfireburns/pseuds/allfireburns
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jack has three chances to recover his lost memories.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Absence of Memory

There were a lot of things he couldn't remember. The last two years were just the beginning. Thinking back, he couldn't remember a number of things, both big and small, from the exact layout of the home he grew up in to his own name, before all the aliases and cover stories. Worse, he couldn't remember whether this was a recent development, or whether it had always been this way...

For a certain value of "always".

He wanted to march into the Time Agency building, find the orders to remove his memories or the files they'd recorded them on, maybe shoot a few people on the way... They'd probably kill him, but at least he'd die knowing _why_.

He wanted to find his partner and ask _him_, and sure, he probably wouldn't talk, but there were ways and ways to get information, and he knew most of them.

Instead, he bought the biggest bottle of hypervodka he could find and set about getting very drunk.

* * *

Jack leaned back against the console and glanced down at the Doctor, flat on his back half-underneath the grating. Jack was half certain the TARDIS didn't really need all the maintenance the Doctor did on it - some of it, sure, but some had to be just an excuse to do something to look busy. "They always said in the stories that Time Lords were psychic."

"They said a lot of things in your stories," the Doctor answered, and while that was true, it wasn't the answer Jack really wanted.

"But if you wanted to, say, unlock something in someone's head that was locked away..."

The Doctor slid out from under the grating and gave Jack a penetrating look that always made him feel open and exposed in a way he wasn't comfortable with at all. "You want me to dig up your memories. Make it easy for you. What if you're not really the sort of man you like to think you are?"

Jack opened his mouth to answer, then shut it again just as quickly. He considered asking whether it was any of the Doctor's business what he did then, because it was his life and his memories. He considered demanding to know if he even could, or if he was only asking the question to see what Jack's answer would be. A part of him vaguely considered asking what the Doctor would want, in his position, and quickly discarded that idea because that question hardly _ever_ got him a satisfactory answer.

Instead, he turned and walked away, into the twisting, haphazard hallways of the TARDIS.

* * *

Jack thought about stopping Hart before he left. He thought about asking what had happened to him, those missing two years. If anyone would know...

Instead, he let him walk away. Closed his eyes and listened to the sound of John's boots on the floor, the alarms sounding and the clank of the opening door.

Everything he might want to know about his past, and he just let it walk away.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [The Absence of Memory [Podfic]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/376616) by [tinypinkmouse_podfic (tinypinkmouse)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tinypinkmouse/pseuds/tinypinkmouse_podfic)




End file.
